ut always had one or two good things to say,
which he did not repeat until they were stereotyped, as so many do.
Though he said witty things now and then, he was not a wit in the sense
that Jerrold was. He shone most in little subtle remarks on life, little
off-hand sketches of character, and descriptive touches of men and
things. He could be uproariously funny on occasion, and even sing his
"Jolly Doctor Luther" at table to a congenial company; but he was often
very dignified, and always gentlemanly. The bits of doggerel with which
he was wont to diversify his conversation are spoken of by all his
friends as irresistibly ludicrous, and he seems to have indulged in
this pastime from a boy, as he did in those of caricaturing and
parodying. Mr. Fields tells us that--

"In the midst of the most serious topic under discussion he was
fond of asking permission to sing a comic song, or he would beg to
be allowed to enliven the occasion by the instant introduction of a
double shuffle. . . . During his first visit to America his jollity
knew no bounds, and it became necessary often to repress him when
walking in the street. I well remember his uproarious shouting and
dancing when he was told that the tickets to his first course of
readings were all sold; and when we rode together from his hotel to
the lecture-hall, he insisted on thrusting both his long legs out
of the carriage window, in deference, as he said, to his
magnanimous ticket-holders."

Some of his fun was a little embarrassing to his friends, as when Mr.
Fields had taken him to the meeting of a scientific club at the house of
a distinguished Boston gentlemen, and Thackeray, being bored by the
proceedings, stole into a little anteroom, where he thought no one could
see him but his friend, and proceeded to give vent to his feelings in
pantomime.

"He threw an imaginary person (myself, of course) upon the floor,
and proceeded to stab him several times with a paper-folder which
he caught up for that purpose. After disposing of his victim in
this way, he was not satisfied, for the dull lecture still went on
in the other room, and he fired an imaginary revolver several times
at an imaginary head; still the droning speaker proceeded; and now
began the greatest pantomimic scene of all, namely, murder by
poison, after the manner in which the player King is disposed of in
'Ha